The Forest of Hands and Teeth (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, #1) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Mar 06, 2012 harlequin {Stephanie} rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: ya, zombies, could-not-finish, audiobooks, ah-romeo-meet-juliet

halfway through, aside from the moving beginning, all mary does is whine about her love, Travis, and how she can't have him. ...more

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Aug 17, 2010 Kerstin rated it it was ok

Shelves: borrowed, read-in-2010, young-adult

2.5 Stars

Mary lives in a village in the middle of a dense forest surrounded by elaborate fences that keep the Unconsecrated, zombie like creatures, out and her little community in. The villagers are led by the Sisterhood, following many old traditions and are protected by the guardians. Most people are happy enough, believing the Sisters when they say that their little community is the last human settlement that survived after the Return. Mary has always believed in more though; the ocean her mo 2.5 Stars

Mary lives in a village in the middle of a dense forest surrounded by elaborate fences that keep the Unconsecrated, zombie like creatures, out and her little community in. The villagers are led by the Sisterhood, following many old traditions and are protected by the guardians. Most people are happy enough, believing the Sisters when they say that their little community is the last human settlement that survived after the Return. Mary has always believed in more though; the ocean her mother used to tell her about, an end to the forest and other survivors. One night she finds out that a girl has entered the village through a long forgotten, apparently unused path and her believes seem to have come true...

Even though the book seemed to have everything from adventure, romance and mystery and the book blurb was intriguing I didn't really enjoy it. I didn't like Mary very much as she seemed to be quite selfish and in her own way rather narrow minded. As the whole story was told from her POV I also never felt that I got to know any of the other characters very well, which was a shame as a couple of them may have been quite interesting but ultimately they all were too two-dimensional.
The romance was unbelievable and felt rather forced into the story (and I usually like a good romance). One reason for that may have been the before mentioned POV and the fact that Mary never really seems to tell us just why she is so in love with Travis and only has the first real conversation with him in the last third of the book.
There also seemed to be too many things going on in the story. A lot of good plot lines were dropped early on and most questions remained unanswered. I for one would have enjoyed to find out more about the Sisterhood, the secrets they kept from the others and why; how much the guardians knew and what caused the Return initially.

I may eventually pick up the second book in the series to see if any more questioned are answered, but I'm in no great hurry to do so.

...more

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